Stamford bridge

Stamford Bridge is a football stadium on the border of Fulham and Chelsea, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham that is home to Chelsea Football Club. The stadium is located within the Moore Park Estate also known as Walham Green. It is nicknamed "The Bridge" by the club's supporters. The capacity is 42,055, making it the seventh largest ground in the Premier League and the smallest amongst the big four clubs. KSS Design Group (architects)designed the complete redevelopment of Stamford Bridge Stadium and its hotels, megastore, offices and residential buildings

HISTORY:-

18th century maps show a 'Stanford Creek' running along the route of what is now a railway line at the back of the East Stand as a tributary of the Thames.

The stream had two local bridges: Stanford Bridge on the Fulham Road (also recorded as Little Chelsea Bridge) and Stanbridge on the Kings Road, now known as Stanley Bridge. Stanford Creek, Stanford Bridge and Stanbridge no doubt all contributed in some uncertain way to the eventual name of Stamford Bridge, which must have been further suggested by the well known Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, a famous victory by King Harold Godwinson over King Harald Hardråde of Norway in 1066, which took place shortly before Harold's defeat at the hands of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings

Stamford Bridge opened in 1877 as a home for the London Athletics Club and was used almost exclusively for that purpose until 1904, when the lease was acquired by brothers Gus and Joseph Mears, who wanted to stage high-profile professional football matches there. However, previous to this, in 1898, Stamford Bridge played host to the World Championship of shinty between Beauly Shinty Club and London Camanachd. [2]. Stamford Bridge was built close to Lillie Bridge, an older sports ground which had hosted the 1873 FA Cup Final and the first ever amateur boxing matches (among other things). It was initially offered to Fulham Football Club, but they turned it down. They considered selling the land to the Great Western Railway Company, but ultimately decided to found their own football club instead, Chelsea, to occupy the ground as a rival to Fulham. Noted football ground architect Archibald Leitch, who had also designed Ibrox, Celtic Park, Craven Cottage and Hampden Park, was hired to construct the stadium.




As originally constructed, Stamford Bridge was an athletics track and the pitch was initially located in the middle of the running track. This meant that spectators were separated from the field of play on all sides by the width of running track and, on the north and south sides, the separation was particularly large because the long sides of the running track considerably exceeded the length of the football pitch. The stadium had a single stand for 5,000 spectators on the east side. Designed by Archibald Leitch, it is an exact replica of the Johnny Haynes stand he had previously built at the re-developed Craven Cottage (and the main reason why Fulham had chosen not to move into the new ground). The other sides were all open in a vast bowl and thousands of tons of material excavated from the building of the Piccadilly Line provided high terracing for standing spectators exposed to the elements on the west side.



Stamford Bridge had an official capacity of around 100,000, making it the second largest ground in England after Crystal Palace, the FA Cup final venue. Stamford Bridge itself hosted the final for the first three years after the First World War from 1920 to 1922, after which it was replaced by Wembley.